Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/539

themselves, before the survey of the reflective student, into the two following theories. The first theory holds that the human mind is something, the creation of which is finished when a man is born. The mind, according to this theory, may be said to be thrown off complete, in so far as its existence is concerned, at the birth of the individual. It is, moreover, supposed to be endowed with certain faculties by means of which it subsequently acquires all its knowledge. This knowledge, however, is not viewed as the staple of the mind's existence; it is not regarded as itself the mind, but as an adventitious acquisition which the mind might or might not have possessed. The mind, quâ existent, is supposed to be as much a mind whether it be invested with this knowledge or not, just as a man is as much an existing man whether he be clothed or naked. This theory, in short, distinguishes between the existence of the mind and the knowledge appertaining to the mind. It gives the preference and the priority to the existence. The knowledge it regards as a secondary and posterior formation. The mind is as much an existing mind without this knowledge as it is with it. The mind of a savage, according to this doctrine, is as much an existing mind as the mind of a Newton, a Milton, or a Chalmers. The theory thus shortly described may be termed the psychological theory of the human mind. We may remark farther, that this theory, in estimating the relation between the mind and its knowledge, regards the mind as the steady and the